How (thanks to Gabriel) Dean and Castiel raised each other (and Sam)

Chapter 12

AN: Sam is 16 and Dean is 20

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Chapter Twelve

"Stop!" Dean yelled, covering his face with his hands.

"I'm going like three miles an hour!" Sam protested, jamming his foot down on the ancient Honda's breaks. "Seriously, if you're going to keep freaking out like this I'm just going to ask Bobby to teach me."

"I'm not freaking out! You're in love with accelerating and you haven't learned to break yet. It's a reasonable fucking concern!"

"I could-" Cas began.

"No!" Sam and Dean said in tandem.

"Just, no." Dean let out a shuddering breath. "You don't belong behind the wheel of a car, man. You made my baby cry. Look, Sammy, just put her back into gear and this time remember you're not Mario Andretti, ok?"

"Yeah, whatever." Sam did something to the gearbox, but Dean didn't start cringing, so it couldn't have been too egregious.

Outside, the tall grasses surrounding Singer's Salvage baked in the heat. Bobby and John were inside the house, huddled in front of the house's only air conditioning unit with a dozen books spread in front of them and a half-dead bottle of whiskey shared between them. Sam, fake learner's permanent burning in his pocket, had cajoled Dean outside with the promise of ice cream and a relief from tedium if he gave him a lesson.

"All right, put her in reverse." Dean demanded, then modeled the correct way to look over one's shoulder. As he turned, he winked at Castiel. "Always go slow in reverse, ok?"

"What if I'm being chased by a monster?" Sam joked, slinging his arm easily around the back of Dean's seat as if he'd been practicing the maneuver. He eased the Honda back and the gravel crunched under the tires.

"If you're driving on a hunt, its only because I'm bleeding out." Dean growled. "And then you better haul all kinds of ass, you got it?"

"Got it." Sam's smile didn't dim, even as Dean made him practice parallel parking over and over.

The sun started to sink downward when John tapped on the passenger window with a raised eyebrow.

"There's a salt and burn bout three hours due West." He said when Dean had rolled down the window. "Think you boys can take care of it?"

"On our own?" Dean sat up straight.

"Well, I think you should take Featherbrain with you, but yeah. On your own."

"What do you think, Sammy?" Dean turned to his brother with a broad grin.

"Yeah, ok." Sam shrugged indifferently, but his smile from earlier still hadn't quite faded. "Let's do it."

It was Dean behind the wheel, of course. The Impala was not to be given over to Sam's tender new skills or Castiel's dubious abilities. Sam sat in passenger seat, a book open in his lap and Castiel in the backseat where Dean had pointed him hours ago. The car hurtled through the night, the pinpoint of Sam's flashlight the only illumination.

"What are you reading?" Castiel asked after two hours of Aerosmith and dark corn fields.

"Lord of the Flies." Sam showed him the cover. "It's kind of fucked up. Like the worst season of Survivor ever."

"I hated the murder scene." Dean reached over and actually turned down the volume of the music. Sam and Castiel stared at him in shock, but he seemed not to notice. "I mean, they're just little kids and they're killing one of their own. I don't think people go that bad that quick."